Predictors of shy children's coping with a social conflict : mediators and moderators

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Abstract

Shy children are at risk for later maladjustment due to ineffective coping with
social conflicts through reliance on avoidance, rather than approach-focused, coping. The
purpose of the present study was to explore whether the relation between shyness and
children's coping was mediated by attributions and moderated by personality selftheories and gender. Participants included a classroom-based sample of 175 children (93
boys), aged 9-13 years (M = 10.11 years, SD = 0.92). Children completed self-report
measures assessing shyness, attributions, personality self-theories and coping strategies.
Results showed that negative attribution biases partially mediated the negative relations
between shyness and social support seeking, as well as problem-solving, and the positive
association between shyness and externalizing. Moreover, self-theories moderated the
relation between shyness and internalizing coping at the trend level, such that the positive
relation was exacerbated among entity-oriented children to a greater degree than
incrementally-oriented children. In terms of gender differences, shyness was related to
lower use of social support and problem-solving among incrementally-oriented boys and
entity-oriented girls. Thus, shy children's perceptions of social conflicts as the outcome
of an enduring trait (e.g., social incompetence) may partially explain why they do not act
assertively and aggress as a means of social coping. Furthermore, entity-oriented beliefs
may exacerbate shy children's reliance on internalizing actions, such as crying. Although
an incrementally-oriented stance may enhance shy girls' reliance on approach strategies,
it does not appear to serve the same protective role for shy boys. Therefore, copingoriented interventions may need to focus on restructuring shy children's social cognitions
and implementing gender-specific programming for their personality biases.